French honor Carthage veteran

Tuesday

In July 1944, Lensy Lane was a U.S. Army infantryman crossing the English Channel to Normandy to reinforce the still-tenuous Allied beachhead in northern France.

In July 1944, Lensy Lane was a U.S. Army infantryman crossing the English Channel to Normandy to reinforce the still-tenuous Allied beachhead in northern France.

The armies of Britain and the U.S. had landed on the beaches of Normandy only a month before and victory was still far from assured when Lane and his fellow soldiers with the 35th Infantry Division, a unit of former National Guard troops from Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, came ashore.

"We crossed the Channel and went ashore at Normandy on D+30 (July 6, 1944)," Lane said.

"They sent us to a position just outside St. Lo where we were fighting in the hedgerow country. In the letter I wrote to the French consulate, I wrote that I was in a 60 mm mortar section. Most of the time we were behind the troops, sometimes we were in front, but we were there to give support. When they were pinned down, they would call us to fire on machine gun nests and troop concentrations."

Lane and his fellow soldiers defeated the Germans in northern France, then charged across the country to liberate its millions of citizens from Nazi rule.

On Sept. 19, France thanked Lane for his individual effort to free their country with the Knights of the Legion of Honor medal.

"Through this award, the French Government pays tribute to the soldiers who did so much for France and Western Europe," said Jean-Baptiste Main de Boissiére, Counsul General of France in Chicago. "More than 60 years ago, you gave your youth to France and the French people. Many of your fellow soldiers did not return, but they remain in our hearts."

Lane joined the U.S. Army on his 19th birthday, Jan. 19, 1943 and became a soldier in Company F, 320th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division. For the first few months of Lane's service, the 35th Division was transferred around the continental U.S. to meet perceived threats to the country's coasts.

One of Lane's early company commanders was Orval Faubus, later to become famous as Governor of Arkansas in the 1950s when he stood against President Dwight D. Eisenhower against the segregation of the Little Rock public school system.

In 1944, the division was shipped to England to await the invasion that would put Allied troops back on French soil for the first time since France surrendered in June of 1940.

The 35th didn't land with the troops on D-Day, June 6, 1944, but once it got to Europe, the former farm boys, laborers and office workers from the middle of America fought long and hard against the experienced and efficient German army and came out victorious.

"Of the original guys from our company that crossed the Channel on D+30, I was one of only five left after the war ended," Lane said. "A newspaper in Omaha wrote that the 35th Division was on the attack for 35 days of its first 45 days in Europe. I remember going three days without sleep more than once. I lost so much sleep that we'd be marching along and if we stopped for a second, I'd go to sleep standing up."

The division charged across France with the rest of the Allied armies after the breakout from Normandy. Just before Christmas 1944, the division stood on the borders of Germany when Adolf Hitler unleashed his armies on the Allies in a last-ditch attempt to divide them.

Lane said his division was sent to Metz, a main transportation hub and target of the large German army advancing in Luxembourg. From Metz, the 35th Division moved forward, helped stop the German advance, then helped relieve the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, fighting off three separate German divisions in its advance.

After that, Lane and the soldiers of the 35th infantry Division fought their way into Germany and Lane saw a war-torn country in its death-throes.

"By the war's end, my battalion was 30 miles from Berlin and the brass had put a stop to us so the Russians could capture Berlin," Lane said.

Lane got out of the Army on Nov. 7, 1945, then served seven years in the Army National Guard here in the U.S.

He also served more than 20 years in the local 203rd Engineer Battalion here in Southwest Missouri.

He worked at a lumber mill in Picher, Okla. from 1947-1997, and officiated baseball and softball tournaments. He also served as an official with the national Gold Gloves boxing group and served with the national, regional and state Silver Gloves group, which promotes boxing for children ages 10-15.

He's lived in Carthage since 1959 with his wife and raised three children in Carthage.

Carthage Press

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.